Germany's internet speed lags far behind other W. European countries

Germany's internet speed for private users is lagging far behind that of other large Western European countries, according to a survey published by consulting firm Deloitte on Thursday, reported Xinhua.

Only 27 percent of Germans stated that they surf with a bandwidth of at least 250 megabits per second (Mbit/s). In Spain, at the top of the ranking, the share was more than twice as high at 67 percent, according to the survey of 13,000 people.

More than half of Germans were still surfing with bandwidths limited to 100 Mbit/s, significantly more than in top-performing countries like Italy, France and Belgium.

Europe's largest economy also ranked last in terms of broadband reliability. Almost one in three people surveyed in Germany had to deal with connection problems on a monthly or more frequent basis.

"Problems with internet access are common in all Western European markets," Deloitte said. Even in "fiber optic pioneer Spain," 26 percent of respondents reported having problems on a regular basis.

"The desire for a stable connection at a reasonable price continues to dominate not only, but especially in the German market - and clearly ahead of high upload and download speeds," said Dieter Trimmel, Partner Strategy and Transformation at Deloitte.

The survey showed that many customers often did not book the high bandwidths because "lower bandwidths are still sufficient," a spokesperson for the German Ministry for Digital and Transport told Xinhua on Thursday.

"However, this is not an expansion problem, but part of the market situation in Germany and an expression of the fact that we have very efficient existing networks," the spokesperson said, stressing that "broadband expansion in Germany is currently progressing faster than ever before."

The European Commission plans to push ahead with the expansion of digital networks and presented on Wednesday a set of possible actions to "foster the innovation, security and resilience of digital infrastructures," including accelerating the switch-off of copper towards fiber networks.